Former Celebrity Big Brother contestant Lacey Banghard has suggested that the housemates were aware of and committed to keeping secret Rylan Clark's departures for X Factor rehearsals.
It emerged yesterday that Clark has been leaving the house during the series to practise for the X Factor live tour, which begins in Manchester on Saturday (January 26), the day after the Celebrity Big Brother final.
When questioned about the controversy by Digital Spy during a PETA photo call in London today, Banghard let slip that Clark's exits were intended to be kept secret, saying: "Oh, I didn't know that had come out. I'm not too sure how I feel about it."
Asked if all the housemates knew what had been going on, Banghard responded: "I can't say, sorry. [You've] put me on the spot".
On her claim in a previous interview that she wanted to "knock... out" Heidi and Spencer Pratt, the glamour model explained: "I thought they were really good people and honest people, and looking back at footage I can see that they wasn't. It just sort of disheartened me a bit."
Banghard said though that she wasn't surprised by the couple's popularity among Big Brother viewers, as "people love to hate".
"I just hope they're putting good messages across," she said. "I like to come and do things like this because I'd like to use Big Brother in a good way, sort of try and help out other people, so hopefully they'll do the same."
Banghard added that her decision to cover up in Celebrity Big Brother - bar a few showers and bra flashes - was out of "respect" for her married housemates.
"I'm quite a free person anyway," she said. "I love nudist camps and stuff, I think [they're] brilliant. You're born naked, you should express it and be comfortable with what you have.
"But there's a lot of married men in there and they weren't as comfortable with me walking around in my pants, so I did decide to cover up a little more. Just for respect of everyone else in the house."
Banghard was out to promote the sterilisation of cats and dogs for PETA, posing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus with two giant condoms.
"PETA's always been something that's been close to my heart because a lot of Page 3 girls have done work with them," she explained.
"They work with massive celebrities and they're a really big charity to work for. They've seen that I've got a lot of views on things from Big Brother, so they thought I would be a good voice. It's something I really believe in, so I'm really happy to be able to work with them."
Banghard also said of the campaign: "If cats and dogs could rubber-up, tens of thousands of animals would be spared suffering and death every year. But they can't, so it's up to us to fix the problem by fixing our animals."
